He can’t lift his arm higher than shoulder level. He suffers heart palpitations and has a seizure disorder.

“I have short-term memory loss,” he said. “I can’t remember what pills I took this morning.”

Medical reports from the University of Utah burn unit said Bacon lost consciousness for about 45 seconds and was pulled out from under the RV, not breathing. He regained consciousness and had trouble seeing, was confused and vomited, then blacked out again for 15 seconds.

The tow truck Cooper Bacon was using when he suffered a severe electric shock in 2014 at Willard Bay State Park.

After a stay in the burn unit and reconstructive shoulder surgery, Bacon returned to West Haven. But everything was different.

The medical bills have piled up close to $200,000.

“I lost my house, my dog and my car,” Bacon said.

He’s grateful for Kurt Stauffer, the tow company owner.

“I’ve been around him my whole life,” Bacon said of Stauffer, who employed Bacon’s father for 15 years.

Stauffer opened a Lyft account and is paying for a by-the-month hotel room for him, Bacon said.

LAWSUITS

Today, Bacon is awaiting the outcome of lawsuits filed on his behalf by Ogden attorney Emily Swenson.

The first suit, filed in 2016 in 1st District Court in Brigham City and later transferred to U.S. District Court, blames Rocky Mountain Power and its parent company, PacifiCorp. The suit alleges Rocky Mountain failed to protect people from electrostatic discharge from its overhead 345-kilovolt major transmission lines at the Willard Bay north gate, where the shock incident occurred.

The suit originally also targeted the state departments of natural resources and transportation for their role in the alleged negligence in the gate area. But those defendants were dismissed from the case after the state argued they were protected by governmental immunity and that Bacon’s attorneys missed a statutory deadline to file the complaint against them.

A second suit, filed by Swenson in July this year, accuses the owners of the RV, a West Valley City couple, of negligence. In their answer to the suit, the couple turned the blame on Rocky Mountain Power and the state agencies.

What’s more, said Bacon and Swenson, people are still receiving electric shocks around the park’s north gate.

Bacon said he just got two messages on Facebook from people who said they had suffered shocks around the gate area.